Deuteronomy 1:26-46

Living Bible

²⁶ But the people refused to go in and rebelled against the Lord’s command.

²⁷ “They murmured and complained in their tents and said, ‘The Lord must hate us, bringing us here from Egypt to be slaughtered by these Amorites. ²⁸ What are we getting into? Our brothers who spied out the land have frightened us with their report. They say that the people of the land are tall and powerful, and that the walls of their cities rise high into the sky! They have even seen giants there—the descendants of the Anakim!’

²⁹ “But I said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid! ³⁰ The Lord God is your leader, and he will fight for you with his mighty miracles, just as you saw him do in Egypt. ³¹ And you know how he has cared for you again and again here in the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child!’ ³² But nothing I said did any good.

“They refused to believe the Lord our God ³³ who had led them all the way, and had selected the best places for them to camp, and had guided them by a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud during the day.

^34-35 “Well, the Lord heard their complaining and was very angry. He vowed that not one person in that entire generation would live to see the good land he had promised their fathers, ³⁶ except Caleb (the son of Jephunneh), who, because he had wholly followed the Lord, would receive as his personal inheritance some of the land he had walked over.

³⁷ “And the Lord was even angry with me because of them and said to me, ‘You shall not enter the Promised Land! ³⁸ Instead, your assistant, Joshua (the son of Nun), shall lead the people. Encourage him as he prepares to take over the leadership. ³⁹ I will give the land to the children they said would die in the wilderness. ⁴⁰ But as for you of the older generation, turn around now and go on back across the desert toward the Red Sea.’

⁴¹ “Then they confessed, ‘We have sinned! We will go into the land and fight for it as the Lord our God has told us to.’ So they strapped on their weapons and thought it would be easy to conquer the whole area.

⁴² “But the Lord said to me, ‘Tell them not to do it, for I will not go with them; they will be struck down before their enemies.’

⁴³ “I told them, but they wouldn’t listen. Instead, they rebelled again against the Lord’s commandment and went on up into the hill country to fight. ⁴⁴ But the Amorites who lived there came out against them and chased them like bees and killed them from Seir to Hormah. ⁴⁵ Then they returned and wept before the Lord, but he wouldn’t listen. ⁴⁶ So they stayed there at Kadesh for a long time.